Steam Deck Upgrade

Shell

• ! Do not use metal pick, only plastic.
• ! Do not lift screen from the right edge since that is where the ribbon cable is and you can easily damage it. Do it from the bottom-left corner.
• ! Take out the SSD prior to any disassembly.
• Put the parts and screws on the table in the same location relative to each other so it's easy to put back for the assembly.
• Do not over-tighten any of the screws as the case can be prone to cracking.
• You can use a hairdryer to heat the screen adhesives.
• Keep the black touchpads because they look better and swapping them for the white ones is a huge pain apparently.
• Take your time. The speaker wires can be damaged if you put too much pressure trying to get them under the hooks. Be gentle.

SSD

• You can either do a transfer or a full reset. The reset is easier but you'll have to re-download everything and set up all the customizations again. The transfer requires a way to plug in the other SSD so you need some kind of enclosure.
• IFIXIT guide.
• I used clonezilla live USB and a USB m.2 enclosure and did disk to disk clone using my USB c hub. CloneZilla does a fantastic job of cloning disk-to-disk and even automagically resized the /User partition to fit the remainder of the 1TB SSD I installed. Booted right up and worked.

Joysticks

• These are electromagnetic joysticks as opposed to potentiometer sticks that are prone to drifting.
• Steam Deck ID starts with MHDA (not MEDA) so set the switch on the new joysticks to B (not A).
• People have reported the sticks sticking so here's how you should install them as well as how to calibrate them.